Illustrating Complex Mappings with Excel

Abstract

It seems to be a well-kept secret even among mathematicians and scientists that Microsoft Excel can handle complex numbers and functions. This gives easy access to complex arithmetic for a broad audience. Complex functions like sine, exponential and hyperbolic functions are built-in functions in Excel. Together with Excels great graphical capabilities this makes it a nice tool for illustrating complex mappings. I have made three sample applications. One is just a simple demonstration, one is a tool for experimenting with different elementary complex mappings and one is a tool for experimenting with the Joukowski transformation.